Sit Back and Watch

In reading the article about Abraham Biggs that Professor Regales posted on her blog, I was reminded of the case of Catherine Genovese. Genovese was stabbed in 1964 in Queens, New York. A man brutally stabbed her over the course of 35 minutes while neighbors watched and failed to contact the police. Genovese called out for help when the man attacked her and neighbors yelled out the window scaring the man off. Once the neighbors shut their windows and turned off their lights the man came back and stabbed her again, and again the neighbors yelled for him to stop. Unfortunately they failed to contact authorities for the second time and when the man returned again he stabbed and killed Ms. Genovese.

It is cases like that of Genovese and Abraham Biggs that make me wonder what people are really thinking. Obviously the time frame in each situation is drastically different, but the concept is the same. If a friend of mine discussed suicide with me on numerous occasions, and then called me one afternoon and said they were going to kill them self I would immediately call the police. That being said I could not and would not stand by and assume that someone would be okay. I would not "worry about getting involved" or "fail to take someone seriously."

While the idea that someone is now able to broadcast their suicide live on the internet is appalling, I do not feel as though that is the main issue in this article. Instead I think the issue is with the people failing to do anything. I believe this occurs because we are all sitting around assuming that someone else will do something instead of actually doing something ourselves. Is it really so bad to call the police even if 20 other people call? Or is it wrong to contact authorities when someone threatens their own life, whether they are actually intending to do so or not? If articles such as this appall us as a Nation why do people still fail to put society and other peoples before them self?